The Natural Order of Things Poems

By: Donika Kelly

Published by Graywolf Press, 2025-10-07

An extraordinary and unexpected book of finding happiness, by the award-winning author of The Renunciations

What does a life look like on the other side of survival, and can the one who survived come to recognize that she did?

Donika Kelly’s poetry is known for its resonant, unflinching confrontations with trauma and inheritance, translated through myth and nature. The Natural Order of Things expands these explorations into a new realm: one defined by joy and connection. It is an ode to companionship with people, animals, and our planet, and reveals the reparative power of intimacy. In poems inventive, playful, and formally nimble, Kelly pays homage to the voices and people she comes from, the songs of her lineage. Other poems follow the early stirrings of love to erotic transcendence with the lover and the self. Throughout, Kelly finds mirror and marvel in nature, art, and precious friendships. Though it once seemed impossible, she realizes a surprising place for herself, a rightness in the larger world.

The Natural Order of Things is a brilliant and moving book, one that reaches toward equilibrium and something like happiness.